I returned home early on New Year’s Eve, planning to surprise my wife and finally hold our newborn son. Instead, I found Maya barely conscious after major surgery, weak from hunger, and trying to keep our freezing baby warm inside an almost empty apartment.

David Mercer came home on New Year’s Eve with a paper bag of takeout, a wool teddy blanket for Liam, and the stupid, happy thought that he would finally get to hold his son without looking at him through a phone screen.

He opened the apartment door and heard his mother’s voice before he saw anyone.

“You’ve eaten enough—stop wasting my son’s money.”

Then he saw Maya.

She was standing unsteadily beside the kitchen table in pale pajamas and a gray cardigan, one hand braced against the edge, the other protecting the wicker bassinet where Liam slept. Her face was gray with exhaustion. The refrigerator behind her stood open and almost empty. Cold instant noodles sat in a bowl on the counter.

Eleanor was gripping Maya’s cardigan at the shoulder and shoving her away from the fridge.

David crossed the room in three strides and caught Maya before she hit the floor.

His mother recoiled, genuinely shocked to see him.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Maya clutched her abdomen and leaned against him. Under the cardigan, he could feel how badly she was shaking.

“She’s dramatic,” Eleanor snapped. “She’s been manipulating you since the baby arrived.”

Chloe stood by the front door in a fashionable coat, one hand already on a suitcase handle. Two packed suitcases sat beside her like they had been waiting for a car.

David steadied Maya with one arm and knocked his mother’s hand away with the other.

“Don’t touch her again.”

Eleanor tried to grab his coat sleeve, pulling him toward the luggage as if she could drag him back into whatever story she had prepared.

“You don’t understand what’s been happening here.”

He tore free.

Maya straightened, breathing hard, and snatched her phone back when Eleanor lunged for it.

Then Maya shoved it into David’s hand.

“Ask them where your fourteen thousand dollars went.”

Everything in the room changed.

He looked from the empty refrigerator to the luggage to his mother’s face.

“What fourteen thousand dollars?”

Eleanor’s eyes hardened. Chloe looked away.

David opened the security-camera app Maya had already pulled up. He had installed the camera in the hallway outside the apartment after a package theft the previous spring and mostly forgotten about it.

Now he saw his mother lunge for his wrist, trying to force the screen down.

“Why were you carrying this out with the suitcases?” he asked quietly.

On the video, the hallway image caught Eleanor and Chloe hauling an expensive-looking leather case out of the apartment earlier that afternoon.

Chloe froze.

David turned the phone just enough for both sisters to see it.

Chloe’s face collapsed first.

“Mom said he’d never notice the—”

Eleanor clamped a hand over her mouth and made a desperate grab for the phone.

In the bassinet, Liam stirred.